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Author | Topic: What IS evidence of design? (CLOSING STATEMENTS ONLY) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
jar Member (Idle past 422 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Why is it not possible to judge based on inspection?
For example, if you look at each of your examples in situ, in the surrounding context, I imagine that I could tell which were design and which were not. Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Taq Member Posts: 10081 Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
As I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer, I wonder if any of you could explain to me how this is NOT related to symbiosis, OR, why Darwin would revise said quote were he alive today? Symbiosis benefits both species. For example, flowers offer nectar as a benefice to bees. Bees, in return, transfer pollen from one flower to the next. Both benefit. What you would need to find is a feature that encouraged or facilitated parasitism.
Having seen this argument come up sooooo many times, I question the very use of the word "designed" as an adjective. All the definitions are inadequate to answer this debate. It's like we need to split the word into two versions, one meaning "designed by an intelligent agent" and the other "ordered and structured". Indeed. Waves create designs in rock. Clouds form designs all of the time (I always see dragons for some reason).
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ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
What if I take a piece of driftwood and don't change it in any way except to put it on my coffee table? Did I "design" something by selecting a new location for it?
You can have brevity and clarify, or you can have accuracy and detail, but you can't easily have both. --Percy
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jar Member (Idle past 422 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
ringo writes: What if I take a piece of driftwood and don't change it in any way except to put it on my coffee table? Did I "design" something by selecting a new location for it? Wouldn't that be very similar to Stonehenge? When we find driftwood in an unusual place, particularly on a coffee table, is it not reasonable to assume that a human did move the wood? Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
jar writes:
Yes, I think that's a resonable assumption. Things like toolmarks aren't the only signs of human intervention. When we find driftwood in an unusual place, particularly on a coffee table, is it not reasonable to assume that a human did move the wood? You can have brevity and clarify, or you can have accuracy and detail, but you can't easily have both. --Percy
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Coyote Member (Idle past 2134 days) Posts: 6117 Joined:
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We deal with "design" all the time in archaeology, particularly with things like stone and bone tools.
And there is no way to tell with some items whether they are natural or modified. Creeks and talus slopes can bash or grind items together, sometimes making a natural item appear deliberately modified. And in fact, some natural items can become artifacts by their use. Good examples are door stops and paper weights. They serve a function, and can be classified as artifacts, but their use doesn't necessarily leave any evidence. There have been thousands of studies in a variety of fields devoted to determining whether particular items are artifacts, and what their uses were. And there are still items where we just can't tell. Creationists, on the other hand, are more in the "no study required, I know it when I see it" camp. Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge. |
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
jar writes: For example, if you look at each of your examples in situ, in the surrounding context, I imagine that I could tell which were design and which were not. You could probably do a pretty fair job of telling which were done by people and which were not. Earlier I said that what is really being discussed is whether we can recognize things produced by people, but "design" hasn't really been defined. Dembski at least has a (claimed) mathematical definition. --Percy Edited by Percy, : Grammar.
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
jar writes: What if I take a piece of driftwood and don't change it in any way except to put it on my coffee table? Did I "design" something by selecting a new location for it? Seems like a better question for Jar. --Percy
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jar Member (Idle past 422 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
I agree that we have no definition of design and I am not sure that a definition of design is even possible. I think what we can see is evidence of outside influence and interference. The important thing I see is that where we can see such signs we can also point to the evidence that leads to a conclusion of influence and interference and they correspond to examples we can see today.
But in each case of determining design (meaning interference by a known external entity) we can lay out exactly what the evidence is and even possible methods of the influence and interference. Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
Could you provide a pointer to Dembski's definition of design? I was of the impression that Dembski had merely proposed a mathematical basis for identifying design.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
I think that it is better to say that Dembski defined design for the purposes of his argument/ i.e. the definition is not intended for general use, only to make explicit what it means within the structure of the argument.
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
See Dembski - Wikipedia.
--Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
I couldn't help reading more of the Dembski entry at Wikipedia and found this:
Dembski once took his family to a meeting conducted by Todd Bentley, a faith healer, in hopes of receiving a "miraculous healing" for his son, who is autistic. In an article for the Baptist Press he recalled disappointment with the nature of the meeting and with the prevention of his son and other attendees from joining those in wheelchairs who were selected to receive prayer. He then concluded, "Minimal time was given to healing, though plenty was devoted to assaulting our senses with blaring insipid music and even to Bentley promoting and selling his own products (books and CDs)." He wrote that he did not regret the trip and called it an "education," which showed "how easily religion can be abused, in this case to exploit our family." --Percy
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jar Member (Idle past 422 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
The problem with that is that it doesn't tell us how to identify Specified Complexity or why Specified Complexity is evidence of design. Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
quote: This article just says that specified complexity indicates intelligent design. But what is design?
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